Safe product delivery requires a strong and efficient packaging material which can hold up under tough conditions. For the selection of a packaging material, the important criteria are its weight, its recyclability, its mechanical properties, and its cost.
Foam materials are widely used since they are inexpensive and lightweight. However most of them are not environmentally friendly and sometimes foam materials can generate static electricity when in contact with another object. Paper honeycomb materials are fully recyclable, lightweight, and inexpensive. Honeycomb materials probably offer the best strength to weight ratio of any material available. However, they do not offer a good compressive strength in the plane of the material (edge compression resistance). Corrugated cardboards are also fully recyclable, lightweight, and inexpensive. However, important quantities of material are necessary to produce safe containers with corrugated cardboard, which increase the packaging cost. Moreover, corrugated cardboard having anti-static electricity properties can be obtained.
Massive applications of the packaging materials require cost efficient and continuous productions to be competitive with the existing products. Furthermore, better mechanical properties to allow weight and raw material cost savings are essential for packaging applications.